“Consumer Reports has pulled its recommendation of Microsoft’s Surface line of laptops and 2-in-1s, following a survey of its users suggesting that the machines aren’t reliable enough,” Andrew E. Freedman reports for LAPTOP. “Specifically, the ‘predicted reliability’ is worse than other brands, the magazine says.”

“Following the subscriber survey of over 90,000 readers, Consumer Reports estimated that 25 percent of devices would have issues by the second year of ownership,” Freedman reports. “The issues included freezing, unexpected shut downs and unresponsive touch screens, but the non-profit didn’t list how many of each complaint it got.”

Well hang on this is the organisation that just loved to make an issue of certain Apple products through its ‘exhaustive’ testing systems (since arguably discredited) hen launched yet had to be told by its ‘users’ that their no doubt similar ‘exhaustive testing’ failed to show up what they now admit are serious issues with ‘all’ these Surface products. And hey it might be me but didn’t they sound sheepish, verging on apologetic in having to do this under pressure to save their reputation form falling even further. It seems to me that their lack of fairness and consistency is only made more than clear to the objective and ‘intelligent’ in this particular embarrassing episode. Indeed some would claim that they have been caught with their fingers in the till.

I’ve been a critic of CR for a very long time. I used to produce reviews for a major media company and would often then (later) compare how others had reviewed the same product/service.

My problem with CR certainly wasn’t that “they were paid off” or “don’t know electronics” or other such silliness. My problem with CR is that they don’t adequately review products for people looking to buy that specific type of product.

Instead, what they do is survey and make editorial decisions to form a list of criteria that the products are going to be judged against.

The flaw in this is that one product that fills a unique niche is going to get a poor review despite the fact that it’s an incredibly great product for what it’s intended to be.

CR also fails to realize that a quality/price ratio isn’t linear, and that for many people paying not only a higher price, but a higher ratio will be worth it. That’s why CR has traditionally missed the mark on most premium product reviews.

CR can also by myopic when it comes to any flaw and how it will actually impact a user in any practical way, as opposed to the perception.

Case in point, the iPhone 4…

I admit that it deserved a footnote of some kind that noted that if you were someone who didn’t want to use a case/bumper and someone who needed to death grip the phone when using it in low signal areas, the antenna design may be an issue for you.

However, to give it a “do not buy” made no sense for most people, especially when the 3G/3GS as well as other phones had even worse antenna grip issues that CR never even mentioned.

As far as the Surface…

This just seems like another screw up for CR (as well as Microsoft). How did 25% of their audience who had the product have problems without CR having noticed the issues during the review? Isn’t the thorough and rigorous testing specifically supposed to protect their audience from being in that position? How did CR not ever go to a Microsoft store and see how faulty the demo equipment was on a regular basis?

TL;DR: This report both shows the problems with the Surface as well as the problems with CR in not identifying these issues before their audience made their purchasing decisions.

I have a response…. the surface laptop is a MacBook Air clone with nice cloth on the palm rest. Never, ever, trust a review which gives Microsoft products glowing reviews, the company has a long history of paying off reviewers and astroturfing, and the verge is particularly susceptible to that (just look at some of their amazon “reviews”)

All that being said, it looks like a decent laptop. But it will fail just like any other Windows based machine because of the same problems. The fact that CR amended their recommendation based on consumer feedback is a big step forward for them and one thing they have never afforded apple in the same respect.

When a site notes other options, or “contenders” and the list of “the bad” items fpr a laptop are really bad, or inexcusable, it’s hard for me to see the article as credible. With that said, I’ll assume the Surface is a pretty good product as it’s their #1 (The Verge).

Novad, Rarely, Rarely are opinions like that viable. Reviews from CR said their “new” review was based on users responses.

NOW, look at who reviewed it. What do they do with the reviewed hardware? How often do they actually keep and use the same computer for over a year? Nope, they change computers every year or earlier. They review it NEW and don’t wait for problems to crop up.

While I wouldn’t be surprised by problems with the Surface, I have very little faith and trust in Consumer Reports. I will admit to checking out their ratings from time to time on products I am planning to buy, but find their approach to covering a category of products to be far from complete or useful. Its another data point to add to my research.

CR has a tendency to hyper-focus on the wrong issues and to miss what matters to consumers.

All the same, I had to use a friend’s brand new Dell laptop the other day. I was flabbergasted at how hard and unintuitive a user interface it is to use – that includes hardware and OS. After becoming a Mac user in 2016, I have no idea how I was able to live as a Windows user before that. It will be a long time before I own another MS product again – including software or hardware. They have become completely irrelevant to my life. Zero interest in the Surface, except to comment about it, here…lol.

Any reviews anywhere for the Surface Studio? Outside of the MS ass-kissing, tech world?

As a graphic artist I have an intense interest in it. It’s just the type of art tool I need… although as someone who has (on occasion) had to use Windows, I am loath to think I might be compelled to buy one.

Although I think Apple is right about hybrid OS devices like MS Surface PCs, they have show us that it’s possible to incorporate touch into a PC, i.e., touch based trackpads, MacBook Pro with touch bar, etc.

So… why not something (like the Surface Studio) that allows us artsy-fartsy types to use iMac/Apple displays as input devices under Mac OS?

And, to be clear, I am not talking about something that runs a combo/hybrid, PC/mobile OS mess like the Surface does.